The Fifth Sacred Thing Read Online Free

bodhisattvas, along with devis and devas, African orishas, and Celtic Goddesses and Gods. Some formed natural clusters: The Yoruba Oshun, Love Goddess, Goddess of the River, stood near Aphrodite and Inanna/Ishtar/Astarte, in front of a small circle of cleared ground where, at the moment, a woman danced barefoot and bare-bellied. Farther down the hill, the Virgin of Guadalupe overlooked the Stations of the Cross. Up here, the sun was welcomed at dawn on the Winter Solstice, the shofar was blown to announce the Jewish New Year, gospel music was sung on Easter morning, the call to prayer was chanted five times a day, and at almost any time of day or night someone sat in silent meditation, counting breaths.
    “To the cairn,” Madrone said. “I brought a stone for Sandy.” Nestled under the vegetables and herbs in her basket was a rock, carved with Sandy’s name and the dates of his birth and death. Sandino Shen Lotus Black Dragon, born September 15, 2019. Died on the twenty-third day of Fog-Rolls-In Moon, Year 20 (June 23, 2048). She would add it to the memorial cairn at the top of the hill, a pile growing at an alarming rate. And that would be all thatwas left of him, her friend, lover, companion,
compañero:
a rock in a pile, some ashes buried in the garden, memories. There were some griefs no ritual could heal.
    Maya touched her arm, lightly, like the brush of a tentative wing. “Shall we place it together?” she asked, “Or would you rather do that alone?”
    “Come with me.”
    Maya reached for her hand. “Come on.”
    Around the mound, clusters of people were leaving their own stones, or placing fruit or flowers for their dead, or simply standing, weeping, holding each other for comfort.
    Madrone took the stone from her basket and held it for a moment. She was trying to think about Sandy, but instead she was thinking about Bird. He was born on the Day of the Reaper; they should have been celebrating his birthday today. A Leo, but he’d had five planets in her sun sign, Scorpio. Sex and death. How old would he have been? She was twenty-eight, and he would be turning twenty-nine. Goddess, they’d been so young ten years ago! She could see his face on the night he went away, his dark skin so smooth and unmarked, his beard still a novelty.
    They were going off with a raiding party, he and Cleis and Zorah and Tom. Would she say goodbye to Maya for him?
    “You’re going to get yourselves killed,” she’d said to him.
    He met her eyes, steadily.
“Claro.”
At the look on her face, he softened it a bit. “Well, probably.”
    She’d wanted to scream at him for being a fool, for abandoning her. But his eyes had frightened her. She had seen him look like that on the night of the Uprising, as he stood over his father’s bleeding body, with everybody around them screaming and the cops trying to club them down. They were only children then, but the look was old, too old.
    Her own eyes were suddenly wet with tears. I’m disloyal to Sandy, she thought, I’m not focusing on him, I’m escaping from fresh pain by probing old wounds. Easier to mourn Bird, after all these years, than to face Sandy’s loss. Or Consuelo’s. Or the others that would come.
    “I’m so sorry about Sandy,” Maya said.
    “It’s Bird I’m thinking about,” Madrone admitted. “Today’s his birthday, remember?”
    “I should remember.” Maya smiled. “I remember his birth clearly enough. Brigid went about it quite efficiently, the way she did everything. How a daughter of mine turned out like that, I’ll never understand. Four hours of labor, start to finish. I wasn’t even late for the ritual that night.”
    “Did she have a home birth?”
    “Yes, my friend Alix was the midwife. I was there, and Bird’s father,Jamie, and Marley, who had just turned three. Brigid thought it would help him bond with the new baby. But he seemed much more interested in the drum I was playing than in his new brother.”
    “Marley was always more